Lord of the Rings Online Executive Producer Kate Paiz announced during a panel at GDC Online 2010 today that Turbine has done it again: Lord of the Rings Online has doubled its revenue and created over a million new accounts since going free-to-play early last month. That's the second MMO Turbine has taken from a paid subscription to a hybrid microtransactions-based business model, with Dungeons and Dragons Online doing the same thing last year (important to note: Paiz was in charge of both transitions, switching to LotRO in July). Paiz told us after the panel that LotRO wasn't in trouble, but rather that Turbine did the math and decided the switch would work. "We knew there was more out there for us," she said.

Paiz also shared that 20% of LotRO's former players have returned to the game since the switchover, and that the game has seen a 300% increase in peak concurrency, with three times the number of players online simultaneously, and a 400% increase in active players total. 53% of players have used the in-game microtransaction store (which sells everything from mounts and outfits to XP boosts and character slots), and as you can see above, extra storage slots are extremely popular in the store. And even paid subscriptions have increased. Turbine's lesson seems to be that, as Paiz said during the panel, "when you tell people you no longer have to pay for it, they come in droves."

I've tried it, I just cannot get into it, seems like it is too much of a grind.

I have a lvl 26 Hunter - Human with only 14 hours of gameplay and 2,990 Turbine Points.

Starting out - Hobbits are grinds because 90% of their quest are delivery...the benefit is that you leave the starting area with 190 Turbine Points.

For those that don't know - Turbine Points allow you to get the things that other ppl pay real $ for.

The game is not much of a grind if you read the quest. Many of them overlap + you can do deeds as you do your quest. So for example in 45 mins solo I was able to complete 6 quest + earn 210 Turbine Points by reading the clues in the game text and quest log.

The biggest con the game has is the speed of travel but by lvl 20 you will have enough points to get the riding skill + mount.